Modern electronic devices may include one or more visual notifications or indicators such as lights that communicate device information such as health, status, and the like, to an operator or user. For example, many electronic devices employ one or more Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) to provide such visual notifications.
However, incorporating LEDs in the electronic devices presents unique challenges. For example, one of these challenges includes directing or guiding light emitted from an LED disposed inside a respective device to an appropriate egress area for external display. Some conventional solutions to guide light emitted from the LED employ a light pipe.
Light pipes are typically transparent members that carry or guide light in a specified direction. With respect to LEDs for electronic devices, one end of the light pipe is positioned next to or proximate the LED while an opposing end of the light pipe is positioned next to or proximate the egress area. Operatively, light emitted by the LED is transmitted through the light pipe to the egress area for external display (e.g., one or more visual notifications). However, light emission losses are inherently associated with light pipes (e.g., due to absorption, scattering, defects in design, etc.), which prevents some portions of the light emitted from the LED from reaching the egress area. In order to account for such light emission loss (as well as ambient lighting conditions of the electronic device, etc.), high lumen LEDs are often employed in the electronic devices. However, high lumen LEDs, present additional challenges—e.g., high lumen LEDs can emit light over a large ambient area around the LED (e.g., inside the device). In turn, light emission inside the device can cause undesirable light transmission such as light bleed (e.g., unwanted light dissipation) through portions of a device housing. Such light bleed may in aberrations to visual notifications (e.g., blurring, etc.).
Conventional approaches that attempt to mitigate light bleed in electronic devices often prove difficult to control and manage, and usually involve complex and expensive manual processing (manually taping high lumen LEDs and/or light pipes with opaque paper/tape/foam/plastic/etc.).